Sunday, August 3, 2008

Clickers

Clickers is a throwback story to old-time 50s-horror-movie horror, with a touch of Lovecraft. It is a collaborative effort between J.F. Gonzalez (his first novel), who’s gone on to a very successful career, and Mark Williams, who unfortunately passed away not too long after the book was written.

The story is pretty simple. A newly successful horror writer named Rick takes a vacation home in an isolated town in Maine to work on a new novel. As soon as he arrives he meets a girl – and the village is overrun by a strange species of crab (the eponymous Clickers). These crabs are abnormally large, with a hard shell and a scorpion-like stinger which injects venom which liquefies tissue. The casualty rate is high, the town is further cut off from the rest of the world, and Rick must protect himself and his new love. Just as the townspeople turn the tide and get the upper hand on the invaders, they learn a far more frightening truth – the reason the crabs have emerged from the deep sea is they are being chased by something far more frightening.

Clickers is a fast-paced action read, and once the attack occurs, it never lets up. True, it isn’t deep literature, but it doesn’t aspire to be. Clickers is supposed to be fun for the horror fan, and it is. The one real criticism I have is the book is one of the most poorly edited books I’ve ever read, and you’ll have to wade through the typos, but it is well worth it.

Clickers has been followed by a sequel, Clickers II, written by Gonzalez and Brian Keene, and there has just been an announcement of a third installment in the series. There has also been discussion for a long time of pitting the Clickers against the giant ants from Jeff Strand's Mandibles.